‘Speeding to the airport was the longest 20 minutes of my life’
On a buzzing 30-degree Friday night in Jaffa, a funky hipster-style suburb of Tel Aviv, Annie Romanos sat with her family at a restaurant enjoying Middle Eastern cuisine.
It’s her favourite city in Israel and, over one of the best meals she’d ever eaten, the Kāpiti Coast mum soaked in the last evening of a month-long holiday with her ex-husband Aaron and their three children, Alexandro, 17, Thea, 16, and Gabe, 10.
Devastatingly, the following day, the very spot they’d had their last meal was hit by missiles launched by Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, from nearby Gaza.
At 6.30am on 7 October, Annie was woken by blaring warning sirens, which
